Eminent Anglo-Saxonist Nicholas Howe explores how the English, in the centuries before the Norman Conquest, located themselves both literally and imaginatively in the world. His elegantly written study focuses on Anglo-Saxon representations of place as revealed in a wide variety of texts in Latin and Old English, as well as in diagrams of holy sites and a single map of the known world found in British Library, Cotton Tiberius B v. The scholar’s investigations are supplemented and aided by insights gleaned from his many trips to physical sites. The Anglo-Saxons possessed a remarkable body of geographical knowledge in written rather than cartographic form, Howe demonstrates. To understand fully their cultural geography, he considers Anglo-Saxon writings about the places they actually inhabited and those they imagined. He finds in Anglo-Saxon geographic images a persistent sense of being far from the center of the world, and he discusses how these migratory peoples narrowed that distance and developed ways to define themselves.

William Shakespeare's lifetime (1564–1616) spanned the reigns of the last of the Tudors, Elizabeth I and the first of the Stuart kings, James I and the changing times and political mores of the time were reflected through his plays. This beautiful new book looks at the England in which Shakespeare worked through maps and illustrations that reveal the way that he and his contemporaries saw their land and their place in the world. It also explores the locations of his plays and looks at the possible inspirations for these and why Shakespeare would have chosen to set his stories there.

In this timely collection, an international team of Renaissance scholars analyzes the material practice behind the concept of mapping, a particular cognitive mode of gaining control over the world. Ranging widely across visual and textual artifacts implicated in the culture of mapping, from the literature of Shakespeare, Spenser, Marlowe and Jonson, to representations of body, city, nation and empire, Literature, Mapping, and the Politics of Space in Early Modern Britian argues for a thorough reevaluation of the impact of cartography on the shaping of social and political identities in early modern Britain.

This book offers the first comprehensive study of the enclosure mapping of England and Wales. The authors assess the processes of land enclosure, the role of maps, the mapping of each county and the cartographic characteristics of all the maps across both space and time. The book is accompanied by an electronic catalogue of all the extant parliamentary and non-parliamentary enclosure maps of England and Wales and serves as an essential research tool for economic, social and local historians as well as for geographers, lawyers and planners.

This is an updated and expanded edition of a classic introduction to medieval England from the reign of William the Conqueror to Edward I. Includes a new chapter on family and gender roles, revisions throughout to enhance the narrative flow, and further reading sections containing the most up-to-date sources Offers engaging and clear discussion of the key political, economic, social, and cultural issues of the period, by an esteemed scholar and writer Illustrates themes with lively, pertinent examples and important primary sources Assesses the reigns of key Norman, Angevin, and Plantagenet monarchs, as well as the British dimension of English history, the creation of wealth, the rise of the aristocracy, and more

Mapping Medieval Geographies explores the ways in which geographical knowledge, ideas and traditions were formed in Europe during the Middle Ages. Leading scholars reveal the connections between Islamic, Christian, Biblical and Classical geographical traditions from Antiquity to the later Middle Ages and Renaissance. The book is divided into two parts: Part I focuses on the notion of geographical tradition and charts the evolution of celestial and earthly geography in terms of its intellectual, visual and textual representations; whilst Part II explores geographical imaginations; that is to say, those 'imagined geographies' that came into being as a result of everyday spatial and spiritual experience. Bringing together approaches from art, literary studies, intellectual history and historical geography, this pioneering volume will be essential reading for scholars concerned with visual and textual modes of geographical representation and transmission, as well as the spaces and places of knowledge creation and consumption.

This survey of unprecedented scope is designed to help the reader map their way through the thinking that has shaped present-day Anglican ministry. It contains a history of strategic developments and key reports and decisions, identifying the vital issues faced by the Church of England and offering informed suggestions for reform.